Nox Noctis of Nex
by Amnky
Summary: Due to untimely delays, the trio, along with several other students, find themselves trapped at Hogwarts alone. What starts out as an incovinient problem turns into a deadly misadventure, as they realize they're not the only ones confined in the castle.
1. Chapter 1

"Gotcha."

Harry spotted his trainer and grabbed it, noting the thick layer of dust surrounding the shoe. Vaguely wondering exactly how long it had been under his bed, he got out of his crouched position and put it on. Doing so, he glanced at his watch, and groaned inwardly as he realized the Hogwarts Express would be leaving in 10 minutes.

It had been a sad procession that walked back to the castle after Dumbledore's funeral. They walked back to the Great Hall and a few more people talked about Dumbledore, how noble he was, how courageous he was, and so on and so forth. Though it was clear that nobody was very hungry, a feast followed and the students' departure was delayed by a flurry of long goodbyes, the teachers being rather lenient and shedding quite a few tears themselves. All in all, it was nearly eight o' clock when they were instructed to go back to their dormitories and get their trunks. Things were not going very smoothly, however, in Gryffindor Tower.

"It still won't come off!" said an angry voice behind Harry. He turned and gave an exasperated sigh. Dean had been attempting for the past 20 minutes to get a large poster of his soccer team off the wall, but it still stuck fast. The members of the West Ham soccer team grinned back stupidly at him while he vainly tried to pry the poster off the wall.

"I reckon it's a Permanent Sticking Charm," Seamus said walking over to Dean, who was now jabbing at the players with his wand.

"If it is, there isn't really anything we can do about it," Harry said, remembering all too well the portrait of Sirius' shrieking mother. 'The train's leaving in 10 minutes. We need to get down there."

Dean, having succeeded in jabbing a player and sending him spiraling out of control to the goal posts, gave a final pry and a shrug.

The boys picked up their trunks and dragged them down the stairs. Harry was just beginning to think that they would get to the Great Hall with time to spare when he heard angry voices from the common room.

"Honestly, Ron, why on earth did you leave it down there?"

"You think I did it on purpose? And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one!"

Dragging his trunk behind him, Harry entered the common room to see Hermione and Ron in the middle of a thundering argument.

"What's wrong?" he said in a weary tone, already dreading the answer.

Ron opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione beat him to it.

"He left his broom on the Quidditch field!" she exclaimed.

"I didn't leave it there on purpose, I-"

"Guys, we really don't have time for this," Harry said, glancing at his watch again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lavender and Parvati scrambling around the room. They seemed to be in the same mindset as Ron; they were hurrying to gather magazines and cosmetics scattered around the room.

"I'll just go down and get it really fast, I can't leave it there, not since we're-"

Hermione jabbed him with her wand at this point; he was about to say that he couldn't leave it since they weren't coming back. Dean and Seamus gave him curious looks, but didn't say anything.

"Fine Ron, go get it, but hurry up. The train'll be gone in 10 minutes."

Ron dashed out of the common room, while Hermione dropped into an armchair, lips still pursed in fury, obviously thinking that a task so petty as retrieving a broomstick wasn't worth the risk of missing the train and should be punishable by law. She probably would've said something about it had it not been for the yelp that seemed to come from underneath the chair. She jumped up and backed away from the armchair. Seconds later, Neville's worried face peeked up from the back of it.

"I can't find Trevor!" he said desperately.

"Neville, you can _never_ find Trevor." Seamus said irritably as he scrambled to pick up the scores of toffees that had fallen from his bag when he jumped in surprise from the yelp. "I'm surprised he hasn't died by now."

Harry looked down at his watch in dismay.

"The train's leaving soon. We're going to miss it if we don't hurry up. We don't have time to look for Trevor."

"Well, we have to do _something_ while Ron's looking for his stupid broomstick," Hermione said, her eyes flashing angrily.

Everyone dropped to their knees rather half-heartedly and looked for the toad. A few minutes later, Ron came bounding into the common room, broomstick held up triumphantly.

"Well, it's about time!" Hermione said, scrambling back up. "I wouldn't be surprised if the train left already!"

"It hasn't," Harry said shortly, looking down at his watch for what seemed like the hundredth time. "But we'll probably have to run to make it."

Having successfully gathered their collections of lipgloss, Parvati and Lavender dumped their belongings into their trunks and shut them. Neville sadly got up and glanced once more around the common room, hoping to see Trevor peeking out from under a table.

Still fuming, Hermione gave her wand a flick and her trunk gracefully rose into the air. Everyone followed suit, and they proceeded to the portrait hole. Dean got there first and gave it a push. It didn't move.

"What's wrong?" Lavender asked.

"It won't open," he said, giving it another push. Harry moved past Dean and leaned against it. It didn't move.

"Oh, honestly!" Hermione said in an annoyed tone. "_Somebody_ probably jammed it on their way in here." She glared at Ron, then flicked her wand. "_Alohamora." _

It remained firmly closed.

Nonplussed, she gave her wand a series of complicated waves, and pushed the door again. Nothing.

In frustration, Seamus gave it a swift kick, but succeeded in doing nothing more than nearly breaking his toe. As he hopped up and down, Harry looked down at his watch.

8:31.

"It's gone." he said, his heart sinking. "The train's left."

The sun was already setting, illuminating everyone's worried faces. Pavarti desperately gave the door one last faint push.

"So, we're stuck in our common room, at the end of term, at night, with everyone but ourselves on a train heading towards London and not coming back for two months." Ron said, somehow confirming their own fears.

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A/N: Ooooh, how suspenseful! If you'd like more, leave a review and I'll punch out some more. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Really sorry about the delay guys, I planned on posting this chapter much sooner, but some things came up. Next one will be up faster, Scout's Honor.

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"Thank you for enlightening us, Ron," Hermione said nastily as she sat down upon her trunk.

Ron glared at her and was about to retort, but seemed to change his mind after seeing the murderous look on Harry's face. Instead, he brought his own trunk slowly back to the ground and sat down on it as well.

For what seemed like an eternity, nobody spoke. Parvati and Lavender followed Hermione's example and sat down on their trunks, but everyone else remained standing, Harry included, who was staring out the window above Dean's shoulder blankly.

Hermione was the first to find her voice.

"We can't be the only ones still in the castle. The teachers are probably still here, and what about the ghosts? And Peeves? They don't leave for the summer…."

"The teachers left on the Express," Seamus said slowly. "They were all wearing their traveling cloaks in the Great Hall, remember?"

"Nevertheless," Hermione said, now standing up and pacing back and forth, "someone would have noticed that we didn't get on the train. Flitwick was checking everyone's names off."

"So let's just wait until someone comes and blasts the door open, " Ron said, getting up and stretching lazily.

Half an hour later, the sun had set and the only light was that coming from the blue fire Hermione had conjured in the grate. Everything was bathed in an ghostly blue glow, making them feel even more miserable.

"I think it's safe to say that no one's coming to get us," Harry said desolately, still staring out the window.

There was a stifling silence as the truth sank in. And then-

"We're going to die!" Parvati shrieked shrilly. "We're going to starve, and they're going to come back in September and find nothing but our rotting corpses!" She let out a wail and began sobbing hysterically into Lavender's shoulder, everyone staring at her.

"It's okay," Dean said, stepping forward and patting her awkwardly on the shoulder." We'll get out of here."

Unnerved by Parvati's outburst, Seamus began pacing the room with Hermione, while Neville had began subconsciously arranging the contents of his trunk by color, shape, and texture, nervously looking up every once in a while as though expecting the chandelier above them to come crashing down.

"All right," Hermione said. "I think we should try to get the portrait hole open again. There are some spells I think might-"

But she was interrupted by a strangled cry from Seamus. He had last been leaning against the portrait hole, but was now nowhere to be seen. Harry tore his gaze away from the window and walked to the now open portrait hole with the others, staring amazed at the dim corridor that was now visible.

"Oh, _now_ it opens!" Seamus said angrily, rubbing a banged knee and looking very harassed.

Harry looked past him into the corridor.

The torches along the walls were still lit, but faintly, ending the passage in complete darkness. He noticed with a jolt that none of the occupants of the portraits were moving. The Fat Lady was completely stationary, poised with a handkerchief halfway to her lips, wearing an uncanny and almost sinister smile. Harry waited for a ghost to drift through the motionless portraits, even the sight of the Blood Baron would have been welcome. But it looked as deserted as ever. There was something eerie and unnatural about it; in all of his nighttime wanderings, Harry had never seen Hogwarts look so abandoned.

He looked back at Hermione and Ron, who were staring back at him with wide eyes. The hallway did not look welcoming; Harry half wanted to step back into the common room, where things still looked relatively normal. Back to some familiarity. He didn't like this new Hogwarts, and from the looks on everyone's faces, neither did they.

"Well," Harry said, speaking for the first time in half an hour, "it's open." Trying to look somewhat confident, he looked back at the others. "Let's get out of here."

Neville let out a whimper, his eyes fixed on the unmoving Fat Lady. Taking a shaky breath, he grabbed his wand from the perfectly arranged objects on the common room floor and stepped over the threshold of the portrait hole. One by one, the others followed, though Harry saw Ron look back wistfully at the common room before slowly closed the portrait hole, leaving them in more darkness and desperation.

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After taking a few moments to compose themselves, the group slowly walked down the dim corridor. Harry noticed that Harmione was clutching Ron's arm tightly and even in the seriousness of their current situation could not suppress a grin.

"So…where are we going?' Lavender asked in a shaky voice as they reached the end of the torchlight and were beginning to descend into darkness. Harry muttered _Lumos_ and heard several voices do the same behind him.

"We should probably check the main entrance first. They may have kept it open," Ron said, though even he sounded doubtful.

Still, nobody had a better plan, and it was worth a try. They now came to a descending staircase and using nothing but the light from their wands, carefully climbed down. As they came to the landing, Harry saw a golden glow and was relieved to see that the next corridor was lit.

"Wait a second," Dean said suddenly. "D'you hear that?"

They stopped and listened. An odd noise was coming from the door down the hall; someone was singing.

Thinking that this could not possibly get anymore bizarre, Harry walked down the hallway, everyone staying close behind him.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and took a cautious step toward the door, all the while wishing someone else would.

"Oh My God!" Lavender gasped suddenly. "That's Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!"

And it was. The off-key singing, however, was not Myrtle's usual droning, and it was quite obvious it wasn't her. It did sound familiar though, and Harry approached the door feeling slightly more relieved, though still holding his wand steady; the fact that Myrtle was not in her infamous bathroom made him uneasy.

The singing reached a crescendo as he pushed open the door. Seamus made a face and covered his ears. Neville gave a nervous laugh. Everyone seemed a little more relieved, which heartened Harry as they reached the stall the singing was coming from.

With a sudden shock, he realized it was a rendition of "Weasley Is Our King." Ron seemed to have noticed this too, as his ears were now reaching the shade of his hair. And the voice seemed even more familiar, Harry was even smiling when he pushed open the door to reveal-

"Luna."

Wearing her usual dreamy expression, she stared vaguely back at them. Harry got the idea that she hadn't yet realized that the train had left and the castle was nearly empty.

"Oh, hello there," she said, looking around at them.

"Luna," Ron said, "What're you doing here? Why weren't you on the train?"

"Has the train left, then?" She asked, though she didn't seem remotely interested, having just caught sight of a jumble of writing scribbled on the stall door.

"Yes," Hermione said exasperatedly. "Why weren't you on it?"

"Well, I came in here to use the toilet before the train left, I gave my trunk and things to Cho Chang to put on the train for me…I wonder if she did, she said-"

"And why'd you stay in here?" Harry interrupted, not in the mood to discuss Cho Chang.

"I didn't stay on purpose," Luna said, though she was still turning her head at odd angles to read the writing on the door. Harry glanced at it, wondering what could possibly be so interesting, and saw his own name coupled with a threat of death by rampaging hippogriff.

"I tried to push open the stall door and it wouldn't move." Her eyes widened. "I bet it was a Yugoslavian Iddlenat, their saliva is extremely sticky and they like to jam doors ."

"Luna," Hermione said wearily. "you have to pull these doors to open them."

"Oh," she said blankly, having finished reading the death threats and stepping out of the stall.

"Well, nobody's here except for us, we expect even the ghosts are gone," Hermione told her. "We were going down to the entrance hall to see if we could get out that way."

Luna nodded, now humming an off-key version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Parvati and Lavender rolled their eyes, and walked over to Dean and Seamus, who had been conversing quietly in the corner. Harry looked over at them angrily, about to tell them off for acting so immature during such a dire situation, when he felt a sudden rush of air. The lamps extinguished, and complete darkness fell.

Luna stopped humming abruptly. The girls screamed, Lavender squealed "Won-won!" at the top of her lungs, and Harry could feel Ron stumble into him as it seemed she had grabbed his arm.

"Ow- Lavender, get off.!"

Harry took a step back, and waved his hand in front of his face, but couldn't see anything. Someone whimpered at his right. Then there was a flash of light so sudden and quick that Harry couldn't tell where it came from, followed by a loud thud. As suddenly as the lights had gone out, they lit up once more.

Everyone was looking pale and frightened, so still they might have been Petrified. Nobody seemed hurt, though. Harry realized he had been holding his breath, and inhaled sharply. Then he heard a petrified scream.

Parvati was clutching her hand over her mouth, pointing a shaking hand towards the stall Luna had recently vacated.

Being nearest, Hermione edged over to the stall, also shaking uncontrollably. She looked in and let out a cry, and slid to the ground. Neville and Ron rushed over to her, and Harry, dreading every step, walked over to the stall and peered in. .

Seamus lay slumped against the wall, eyes glassy and dull.

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A/N: Awww, poor Seamus, first to die at the hands of our psychotic killer. So you now know that the Gryffindors (and Luna), are not the only ones within the castle. Unless of course, one of their own is the murderer. But who? I'd love to hear some guesses, and of course, reviews, no matter how short, are always greatly appreciated.


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